Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique
I’ve never been that massive a fan of the Beastie Boys in all honesty, but this record is just awesome. The ultimate exercise in sampling, it’s one of the few hip-hop albums where a production outfit not only adds to the sonic palette of an artist, but they enhance the very personality of what they’re about. Furthering the Bomb Squad’s approach of throwing everything into the mix this album also helped pave the way for instrumental hip-hop and turntablist albums from the likes of DJ Shadow, The Avalanches, X-Cutioners and even Jurassic 5’s dj enhanced releases, marking it not only the best Beastie’s cut but also probably the most influential, especially considering the path Mixmaster Mike would go on.
The result is a ridiculously madcap, off kilter and wondrously weird pastiche of near enough every musical genre under the sun. The rowdy frat feel of Licensed to Ill is replaced by a much more endearing, humorously woven together masterpiece that most Beasties fans would agree is their best album. Of course it bombed commercially, but it helped set them up for the alternative role they would fulfil in the wider world of music up until MCA’s death last year.
There’s always something very brave about artists who rip up the rulebook when dealing with success and this is one of the best executions of doing so (see also De la Soul and 2Pac with Makaveli), and hip-hop at it’s most irreverent and fun. It has to be listened to as a whole opus as well, somehow cohesive despite the madness.
Roots Manuva – Brand New Second Hand
As a teenager the world of UK hip=-hop wasn’t something I delved into particularly deeply, but I can remember Roots being on the cover of HHC around the time I regularly started buying it in early 1999. The reason was this album, and in the midst of one buying surge at HMV based on some kind of offer like 3 for £20 (there was always a second tier of needed albums which only got bought if they made it to this area, £14+ was the cost back in these days) it landed in my ownership.
I was impressed, the use of strings at various junctures made it extremely atmospheric and ‘Motion 5000’ peppered one of the many tape compilations I made for me and my mates at that time. Albums for us then were resources for said tapes, very rarely anything to listen to in full, and this opus to my ears sounded like something a bit different for the continued process of one-upmanship that these tape exchanges were, but not much more. Then I went to university.
Uni changed the way I listened to music, mainly because I had more free time and but also because I wasn’t always in control. Very few of the gangster dominated songs from Tupac, Biggie, Scarface and so on was getting a chance and seeing as there was no tape players I couldn’t revert to the tried and tactics of wowing them with a rare Yukmouth stomper. This was one of the albums that I managed to coerce in, and when I did I realised the languid glory of it. Undeniably British, roots’ created a mellow masterpiece that is the perfect blend of Caribbean culture and the black British experience so redolent in Bristol and London, which although still pretty far from my middle class white Midlands existence was still closer to my mindset than the gang soaked streets of the states.
It’s near flawless (‘Dem Phonies is an aberration), gorgeously cohesive and a record that breathes with humour and individuality at every stage. It makes sense at 3am in the morning smoking and letting it absorb your eardrums, or lazily caressing your ears of a weekend whilst doing the housework, and has some absolute monster records alongside the strings of ‘Motion 5000’ such as ‘Inna’ and ‘Juggle Tings Proper’. The influence of dub as well, weaving a tapestry of sound underneath, means the space of the record is brilliant and the juxtaposition of all these disparate influences makes for a beguiling album that is still unique nearly fourteen years later.
Roots would go on to smash out the indomitable Witness and create a glut of albums that have made him one of my favourite rappers ever. He’s also perhaps behind the greatest live performance I’ve ever seen, his gig at the Lomax in September 2001 when he was accompanied by a string quartet was nothing short of sensational and, despite it following ‘Run Come Save me’, was mainly made up of tracks from this album. I’ve heard some people say ‘Awfully Deep’ is his true masterpiece but for me this one will always ring true.
Is this a hip-hop album? In my eyes yes; whilst what followed from Massive Attack and erstwhile member Tricky would go onto become the fabled trip-hop movement, this offering was probably the first ever truly great UK album that existed outside yet still belonged to the underground hip-hop scene. Sample led, bolstered by rap turns that welded British slang and Caribbean patois and very much born from the Streets of Bristol, ‘Blue Lines’ is undoubtedly carved in the same spirit of musical expression that exploded from the Bronx in the early seventies, reflective more of our mongrel culture of integration as opposed to the US’ segregated values (although the subject matter would delve into the class divides).
Deliciously short it’s near perfect, featuring some delectable soul turns and in ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ one of the most heartfelt and beautiful pieces of music ever made, and certainly the most emotionally wrought use of a cowbell ever. The video also ingeniously transported singer Shara Nelson to South Central Los Angeles, the vanguard region for hip-hop at that time, before the other members of the band joined her. This was famously homaged or pilfered, depending on your viewpoint, both musically and visually by The Verve with ‘Bittersweet Sympathy’, and the influence of the band saw the album acclaimed by the wider music press. The other four videos that sprung from the album were also pretty special.
Such was the power of the album that it is understandably classed as more than just hip-hop, but for me it has a special place in my heart on those very core characteristics of the genre it shows so well. Much more worthier voices than my own put this album in higher echelons of importance and influence too, and I’ve heard it suggested as one of the most important pieces of soulful music Great Britain has ever created. It’s a legacy it deserves.